An Interview with Shokr Khoda Goudarzi, Author & Director of 'Sohrevardi'
Six Years of Studies
Iran Theater: Sohrevardi is a legendary figure in Iran philosophy and mysticism. He passed away when he was 37 years old. But he wrote more than 50 books on philosophy and mysticism.
Sohrevardi is not known in Iran a lot. Shokr Khoda Goudarzi has studied about his life and is going to direct a play about him since September 24.
Iran Theater has conducted an interview with him.
Why have you decided to direct a play about one of Iranian luminaries?
Many cultural and historical figures of Iran are not known by the younger generation. Shohrevardi is one of such elites. Iranians are strangers with him unfortunately. I was talking to Mr [Asghar] Hemmat (head of Iran Theater Forum) recently. A young person came and said he wanted to stage a play by [Norwegian playwright] Ibsen. Mr Hemmat asked him, "do you know his thoughts, have you done studies on his plays?" The young person answered no and had just seen a performance of 'An Enemy of the People' and wanted to stage another play of him. The young director asked me whether I wanted to direct a play. I said; Yes, a play about Sohrevardi. He was surprised and asked, "Sohrevardi? Who was him?" We should not blame the youth for not knowing Iranian luminaries but officials and us who did not lay the ground for them to know their important figures. I think an artist must be concerned about making people familiar with Iranian luminaries. But we suppose working about them would be beyond our dignity. I have decided to take a step in this regard ad make the young generation familiar with them.
Such plays on luminaries need lots of researches and studies. What did you do?
I devoted six years on conducting studies. I studied books of Sohrevardi. I worked round-the-clock. I took the play to the philosophy professors to read it. I sought their views and great figures such as professor Dinani and professor Mojtahedi.
Afsar Asadi, Elham Jafarnejad, Majid Jafari, Alireza Darvishnejad, Habib Dehghannasab, Ali Dehkordi, Fakhreddin Seddigh Sharif, Navid Goudarzi, Asghar Moeini, Somayeh Mirbaha and Asghar Hemmat will star in 'Sohrevardi'. It will have performance every day except for Saturdays at 18:00.
Shahab ad-Din Sohrevardi (1154-1191) was an Iranian philosopher and founder of the Iranian school of Illuminationism, an important school in Islamic philosophy.